A New Year's Eve Daily Double

Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) - The New Year's Eve celebration usually ends
at midnight but it begins 12 hours earlier in Nashville where Vanderbilt hosts
North Carolina State in the Music City Bowl.

Vanderbilt is going bowling for the second straight season, a first for the
university. In addition, the Commodores have been one of the hottest teams in
the country with six consecutive victories, including a 55-21 dismantling of
Wake Forest in the season finale. They hope to knock off another Atlantic Coast
Conference foe in North Carolina State.

The Wolfpack won four of their first six games, including a one-point thriller
over Florida State, but were up-and-down the second half of the season. Still,
many of their games were extremely predictable.

A letdown was expected after the win over the Seminoles and it showed as North
Carolina State barely got past a stubborn Maryland squad by two points.
Overtime loomed against North Carolina but the Wolfpack allowed a 74-yard punt
return for a touchdown inside the final minute in their next game.

Their minds were elsewhere versus Virginia the following week due to the tough
last minute loss to their arch-rivals. The Cavaliers pounded North Carolina
State, 33-6. The 'Pack regrouped to crush Wake Forest, 37-6 before finishing up
with an expected loss at Clemson and a home win over Boston College.

Even though Vanderbilt has won six games in a row, only one of those victories
came against a team that made the postseason. In fact, the Commodores failed to
beat any squad that finished above .500 the entire year!

North Carolina State has been extremely solid in bowl games of late at 6-2
straight-up and 7-1 against-the-spread. Expect each of those impressive records
to increase by one with an upset victory over Vanderbilt.

Take the Wolfpack plus seven points.

TWO MORE THRE-STAR SELECTIONS

The final New Year's Eve contest pits LSU and Clemson in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl -
a rematch of the 1996 Peach Bowl, where LSU won, 10-7.

These two teams have played a pair of common opponents in Auburn and South
Carolina. Both clubs knocked off the former with LSU winning by two in Auburn,
and Clemson getting the job done in the Georgia Dome by a touchdown. LSU also
defeated the latter by a deuce while the Gamecocks got the best of Clemson,
27-17.

If the Tigers scored just 17 points against South Carolina and 26 versus a
bad Auburn team, imagine how few points they'll put up against LSU. In
addition, LSU averaged just 22.5 ppg on offense in its last eight FBS games.

Look for Clemson to score around three touchdowns, so for this contest to go
over the total, LSU will have to put up over 38 points, and the Tigers have
done that just one time against a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent since the
third week of the season.

Take under 59 points.

The other three-star play comes two days prior on Dec. 29 in the Fight Hunger
Bowl.

Navy comes into this one with just three weeks of preparation due to the Dec. 8
game against Army. On the other hand, Arizona State has not played since
upsetting Arizona all the way back on Nov. 23.

The Midshipmen have won all but one game since freshman Keenan Reynolds took
over at quarterback for Trey Miller. However, it is not as if they blew out the
competition. In fact, they are 0-4 ATS in their last four contests.

The Sun Devils were rolling along at 5-1 until they were blitzed by Oregon,
43-21. It seems as if it took them a few weeks to recover as they wound up
losing their next three games.

Look for a ton of points to be scored in this one as both clubs are equally
capable of scoring in the 30s.

Take over 56 points.

TWO-STAR PLAYS

Go with Clemson +4.5 (LSU).

ONE-STAR SELECTION

There are no one-star plays.

FINAL REGULAR SEASON RECORD

My overall regular season record ended at 93-85-5 after a 2-2 week. The five-
star plays went 10-8-2, the three-star selections were 21-24-1, the two-star
picks stood at 34-32-1 and the one-star plays ended at 28-21-1.

As a reminder, five-star plays are when my personal plays coincide with my
power rating plays (games with at least a five-point differential between my
line and the actual line). The three-star choices are my personal picks, the
two-star plays are the games the power rating system picks and the one-star
plays are my personal secondary selections.

(The Top 12 is not a reflection of a given team's won-loss record. It is
based on power ratings used to predict spreads for the upcoming week. At the
beginning of the season, all 124 FBS teams are assigned a power number, which
changes on a week-to-week basis depending on the results of the previous
week.)